Hiya! I’m Blake from the Ironwood Studios staff and we’re proud to introduce Whispers within the Woods, a significant narrative and gameplay growth to Pacific Drive.
When Pacific Drive first launched in February 2024, gamers joined their trusty station wagon to courageous the haunting, anomaly-filled Olympic Exclusion Zone. The sport’s distinctive mix of driving, tense exploration, and scrappy automobile upkeep rapidly resonated with followers of automobile and survival video games alike. Now, we’re excited to carry gamers again to the driving force’s seat and again to the Zone in Whispers within the Woods, coming later this yr for Ps 5.
Return to the Zone
Whispers within the Woods takes you on a brand-new journey again into the Olympic Exclusion Zone. Accessible after your first few hours within the recreation, the growth could be pursued alongside your major marketing campaign and explores the rise of a terrifying group of anomaly obsessed fanatics hidden deep throughout the depths of the forests.
With their look, the growth brings a change to the woods of The Zone in contrast to something you’ve seen earlier than. Not solely do new anomalies roam the forests, however huge effigies adorned with cryptic symbols fill the panorama as the sport’s ambiance takes on a darker extra horror targeted tone.
“From the very starting, we knew we wished to take the mysteries of the Olympic Exclusion Zone in a brand new route for this Growth.” says Cassandra Dracott, Inventive Director at Ironwood Studios. “We had heard a lot suggestions and so many tales in regards to the concern individuals had skilled in Pacific Drive and in With Whispers within the Woods, we knew we wished to lean laborious in that route.”
It’s not only a tonally completely different expertise both. We’ve added a completely new totally voiced narrative within the growth and with it, we’re in a position to proceed constructing on the world of the sport and the surreal nature of the Zone. We’ll depart you to theorize what occurs subsequent – nevertheless it wouldn’t be Pacific Drive if we weren’t additionally supplying you with new experiences to have together with your 4 wheeled companion.
Uncover Artifacts
Whispers within the Woods brings extra of every part you’d hope for in a Pacific Drive growth. New gadgets, automobile components, cosmetics, junction varieties, and anomalies await. We’ve even added new behaviors to outdated anomalies to assist preserve you in your toes. The biggest and most vital addition nonetheless, are the model new Artifacts.
“As you acquire these mysterious objects, you’ll have to take care of their unpredictable automobile and world altering results, forcing you to continuously adapt and alter your technique on the fly.” provides Richard Weschler, Lead Designer on Whispers within the Woods.
Created by our mysterious group of fanatics, Artifacts are the growth’s gameplay centerpiece. Impressed by our quirk system, every Artifact is imbued with a situation and an impact stated situation creates. Maybe each time you bounce, your automobile horn honks. Perhaps when your automobile horn honks it additionally takes harm. Whereas some might grant you unusual benefits, others will add twists and turns to the way you play. Artifacts may even play off of one another to create chain reactions.
It’s as much as you to determine which Artifacts are the best ones on your time within the Zone. It doesn’t matter what sort of Artifact you and your wagon discover, two issues are true: gathering a lot of them can be vital to your time within the Whispering Woods, and should you maintain too many, way more harmful issues deep throughout the forests will slowly awaken.
A significant growth for brand spanking new and returning gamers
Since its launch, we’re proud to have a couple of million gamers globally. Within the 18 months since launch, we’ve continued to assist the sport with a number of free updates like April 2025’s Infinite Expeditions replace, which added infinite journeys into the Zone, doubled the scale of the radio tracklist, and added the droop run characteristic.
Whispers within the Woods nonetheless, is the studio’s most bold replace but. With hours of recent gameplay and story content material, plus an explorable area near one-third the scale of the bottom recreation, the growth represents a big step ahead for each new and returning followers and we’re extremely excited for everybody to expertise it.
“We see this launch as each for our longtime gamers and a welcome signal for newcomers,” Cassandra provides. “For those who’ve been driving by means of the Zone since day one, Whispers within the Woods goes so as to add a model new, extra terrifying tackle the Olympic Exclusion Zone. And should you’re simply beginning out, this growth marks the very best model of the sport to this point with new methods and content material to seek out and discover.”
Whether or not you’re returning to your acquainted station wagon or beginning contemporary in your first journey into the Zone, Pacific Drive: Whispers within the Woods presents a haunting new journey and we will’t wait so that you can expertise it later this yr on Ps 5.
